CONFLICT SENSITIVE ADAPTATION

Transcription

1 CONFLICT SENSITIVE ADAPTATION Parvin Sultana and Paul Thompson Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University Community based Adaptive Learning in management of Conflicts and Natural Resources in Bangladesh and Nepal (CALCNR)

2 Presentation outline Research aims and design Conflict sensitive adaptation - idea Conflict causes Examples of case studies Local water management (video) Local water management Coastal water management - larger scale, polders Factors transforming conflict Conflict sensitive adaptation recommendations Future research

3 Research question How can collective action be enabled to reduce natural resource conflicts associated with climate change stresses and related responses? Based on action research in >70 sites in two countries and linkages between components, we identify 8 main factors enabling collective action that reduces NR conflict associated with climate change

4 Transformation of practices, institutions and policies a process: within CALCNR sites and stimulate actors for wider legacy and impact Action research design Climate Change stresses NR and exacerbates local conflict Contested natural resource commons Local institutions and CBOs Climate Change policy responses may heighten conflicts or undermine cooperation CALCNR Central question: How can collective action be enabled to reduce natural resource conflicts associated with climate change stresses and related responses? Knowledge Participatory Action Research (CBO level) Multistakeholder forums Development impact Adaptive learning among CBO networks Capacity building Evidence Understanding Awareness Attitudes

5 Climatic hazards affecting NR and PAR sites in Bangladesh 1 Climate hazards / pressures and PAR sites in Bangladesh 14 CBOs in NW identified: Drought (main hazard, increasing Floods (decreasing) Hailstorms (increasing) Riverbank erosion (no trend) CBOs in SW identified: Cyclone (increasing) Drought (increasing) Flood (no trend) Salinity (increasing) CBOs in NE identified: Flash floods (more severe less frequent) Hill erosion (increasing) Drought (increasing)

6 What is conflict-sensitive climate change adaptation? Adaptation refers to the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli, or their effect, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities (IPCC, 2007). In other words: a change in processes, practices, and structures to prevent or address damages, or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change.

7 Adaptation flexibility Government programs typically follow standardized designs and approaches. But adaptation, as with other initiatives, needs to be adjusted to local needs. Climate change has both widespread and local effects. Different communities and different actors within a locality may be affected differently by changes and stresses. Adaptations will vary according to the socio-ecological system in which they occur, who undertakes them, and the climate and other factors that initiate actions.

8 Potential conflict sensitivity There are three aspects to considering conflict in adaptation: 1. Climate change can cause or contribute to conflicts by making natural resources scarcer, and/or by multiplying or triggering other factors underlying conflict. 2. Climate adaptation initiatives themselves can cause or contribute to conflict. 3. Adaptation measures could operate in conflict zones. Our action research provides lessons on 1 and 2.

9 Complexity in floodplain human-ecosystem interactions a source of competition and conflict Uses Types of resource (commons, private, public) Institutions and rights Government agencies honey crabs fuel fish manure peat Aquatic fruits molluscs mat making reeds grazing Floodplains grasses wild birds vegetables water wildlife crops ducks

10 % of cases Causal factors behind conflicts in case studies Factors (underlying and triggers) behind NR conflicts studied Bangladesh Nepal

11 Cases:

12 Case studies 53 cases of local conflict and cooperation in Bangladesh were investigated and attempted to be addressed through participatory action research since Four examples are presented

13 Case 1: Water related conflict in Hakaluki Haor Two communities used water from the same stream. Climate stress caused shortage of water for dry season irrigation, and induced conflict between the two communities. Mediation failed to change the position of the upstream village that diverted a stream away from neighbouring villages. Participatory action research working with existing CBO found through local knowledge a quite different adaptive solution that became a basis for cooperation. Video

14 Case 2: Narail floodplain landscape 14

15 Hierarchy in social status Lack of coordination, cluster committee non-functional Both gates of sluice broken, not repaired by BWDB Control of sluice gate by big farmers/ enclosure owners in GH Conflict over sluice High value fish and prawn Expansion of fish enclosures in Goakhola barricaded crop area, dewatering enclosure in dry season diverted water to other plots/area Climate change, untimely rain, lack of drainage of excess water causing damage to standing rice crop in monsoon, late planting of dry season crops Participatory Action Research output: causes and effects of NR conflicts Low lying area (Bakri and Kathuria) facing water logging in monsoon, late planting of dry season crops Water logging in small holders plot/land remain fallow Elite benefit: crop and fishery, control over common property resources Small and marginal farmers: loose crop and fish Poor and women: loose right over common property resources, less food, dry season fish sanctuaries suffer water stress

16 Actors Position Interests CBO executive committees Small and marginal farmers who are also subsistence fishers Big farmers Big farmer & enclosure owner Sluice gate committees BWDB Upazila (subdistrict) and district administration Actor position analysis - extract Represent our members. Should be represented in relevant sluice gate committee. Should get equal opportunity for farming in their land without waterlogging. Want sluice gates open to drain out excess water, and to let in fish to spawn. We own more land and sluice gates should be operated according to our needs. Free to use water and grow crops as they think We control the local economy and most of the local manpower. Poor people can't fish or enter our ghers To take care of main water users interest Authority over all sluices and embankments. No inlets can be made in embankments. Know best what is right for the area. Maximise production. Responsible for public lands and waters. Represent national interest. Hold authority. Waterlogging free area. Keep community specially big farmers and gher owners happy. To be elected again next term. Early rice variety to avoid waterlogging. Want representatives/their interests considered in water management decisions More fish for food and for income Demonstrate power. Control over sluice gate operation. Higher production, expansion of business Higher production, more power, embankments remain intact that make enclosures feasible, water management that serves their operations. Opening and closing gate when asked provided this benefits or at least does not harm themselves High production from own land. Power. Direct water management within project areas. Focus is on rice and to lesser extent other crops (rather than fish). Construction and benefits from contractors Maintaining power. Operating existing systems for benefit of those with links to them. Obtain benefits from allocating (leasing) out use rights

17 Resolving local conflict Action research focused on individual CBOs and actors to understand positions. Found a common interest once distant lower communities were represented in sluice committee and operation is adjusted, then they contributed to maintenance connected communities both benefit. Changed operation of sluice to help more distant lower area Then made cropping changes to improve returns considering water regime. Fish and aquatic conservation possible - added value and sustains floodplain ecosystem. BUT this has not addressed the impacts of changing land use to aquaculture

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20 Helping community photographers and subjects develop their photo stories

21 Issues Raised by Women and Men Using Floodplain Resources in Goakhola Area extracts from photo stories

22 Women collect water lily stems and its roots (shaluk) from the flooded fields. Nobody objects as during the monsoon the land owners allow everybody to collect aquatic plants and animals.

23 Women use hook and line to catch fishes for food or to sell. This is an environment friendly method and does not harm fish populations. About 90% of women here catch fish for consumption, sale, or for both.

24 Although natural fish provide livelihoods for poor people, use of fine mesh (mosquito) nets catches small size natural fish. Men use this type of net even though the fishery rules prohibit them.

25 Women break snails for fish feed traders, even though we know this is not environment friendly. There should be a ban on collecting juvenile snails, and a closed season for catching snails just like for fishing.

26 Large and smaller landowners around the edges of the seasonal beels have made raised bunds and changed from growing rice to growing fish as it is more profitable.

27 Men usually catch fish and sell the fish in the market. This is solely a male dominated job.

28 As aquaculture expanded and flood levels fell, the area of flooded fields in the beel has fallen. All the natural resources decreased drastically in recent years, along with our incomes.

29 What will be the future? aquaculture or diverse wild aquatic resources?

30 Cases 3 and 4 - Coastal Bangladesh Are polders adaptation or a source of conflict? 90+ polders built in 1960s, series of projects ever since to rebuild and improve them

31 Case 3: Dakhin Raogaon - Context Protected from floods and tides by polder - embankments and Sugandhi Sluice. Internal channel connected to Sugandhi sluice has two branches, one with a one vent sluice, the other was left open. Increasing sea and tide levels meant water could not drain out. 3 villages inhabited by lineage of local UP chairman took his help to persuade BWDB to close the open channel.

32 Waterlogging This created water logging in 19 neighbouring villages. Due to standing water, farmers could not cultivate their land, water was not suitable for livestock or domestic use, water borne diseases increased, children could not go to school. Also an influential person used barriers and blocked the small sluice gate to catch fish.

33 Conflict Between 19 villages and government and also 3 villages disputes and divisions between villages. The waterlogged villages lobbied to improve their drainage. A Minister and other high officials attended a mass gathering and committed to help the people. But nothing happened - 3 local UP chairmen did not pursue the matter and made factions within the area to minimise threats to their power.

34 Action research 1 We worked to understand stakeholders. Identified 19 villages (farmers, fishers, men and women) v elites, government and 3 villages. After stakeholder meetings in 19 villages, they collected 1,000 signatures requesting action and planned to submit this to ministry and media. Local UP chairmen stopped petition and persuaded BWDB to add gates to both sluices But this did not solve water logging in 4 villages.

35 Action Research 2 CBO covering 4 villages asked for help from CALCNR. All stakeholders through a participatory planning process agreed to install pipe sluices to reduce water logging without adversely affecting others, and to work together to irrigate dry season crops by reserving surface water. BWDB engineer helped them to make the design. Pipe sluices were built. The local chairman provided funds to strengthen the structure around the pipes against high tides.

36 Adaptation Crops and yields: No water logging since then 100% land is under cultivation - 2 crops a year in most of the land. No adverse impact on other villages Elite persuaded to stop using barrier continually for fishing. CBO meeting attendance, activity and resource mobilization tracked UP chairman did not lose face, rather he showed he helped more people in his constituency.

37 Case 4: Siltation and Conflict Gradually rivers silted up so polders couldn t drain through sluices Waterlogging affects crops, homes, livestock

38 TRM concept (1) Mass movements to break polders to relieve drainage congestion in 1990s. Ultimately BWDB accepted this as an adaptive management strategy Tidal River Management. Allow natural movement of tide into lower parts of poldered area (beel) through deliberate breaches. Silt is deposited inside rather than in the river outside During low tide clear water scours the river bed and increases river depth

39 TRM concept (2) Landowners inside polder cannot grow crops during breach and yields at first are low after re-closing (salinity). Need to rotate in a planned way breaching each polder connected to each main river. Short term and long term winners and losers. Requires coordination and cooperation within each polder (which has multiple CBOs), and between polders. A governance challenge converting conflicts (e.g. between crop and fish farmers within a polder; and between people from adjacent polders) into continual cooperation. If future public adaptation involves strengthening polders, how will it be conflict sensitive?

40 Case study Keoratola Late 2000s 2 planned breaches of embankment by BWDB with the help of local people restored flow from river into beel. Local people closed breaches, farmers started to grow crops, most people said drainage improved a lot. TRM started in the next beel, but people there soon closed embankment, so river gradually silted up - again. Re-excavation and a sluice were not effective. Visualization by artists of actor positions.

41 Tidal River Management (TRM ) involves planned breaking of polder embankments to allow in tidal flow and silt to restore land levels relative to sea level. It was undertaken here in the past. But future opening of the polder is contested.

42 The Golden Past In this area years back life was oriented around the river. There was a village market by the side of the river. People got fish and aquatic plants for food from the floodplain. Farmers cultivated rice and other crops, the fields were green in dry season.

43 Present Dry Season Now people s life is gher-based (aquaculture enclosures) due to water-logging and flooding. Farming is not possible in low-lying areas and has been replaced by aquaculture.

44 Present Wet Season Land is low inside the embankment. Outside silt was deposited and the land became higher. The onrush of monsoon water at the sluice gate is high. This overtops the ghers, so the owners use nets to protect their fish.

45 If there is no TRM, the gher owners will be happy earning more from fish culture. Future do nothing gher owner view

46 Future do nothing view of poor Those who do not want TRM are the gher owners who are rich people. Small land owners dependent on farming and involved in river based livelihoods want TRM but will be supressed.

47 Future do nothing long term view of poor There is a prediction by the residents that in future the river will be a desert in dry season but in the monsoon the whole area will go under water.

48 If there is TRM the rich and gher owners will have less income. They will not be happy. Future with TRM gher owner view

49 Future with TRM small farmer view If there is TRM and there are no ghers, then people will cultivate the land. They will be busy farming and carrying crops to the nearby hat (market). People will be able to do various works.

50 Future with TRM wider perspective If TRM works in all the beels, then people will be relieved from water logging, life style will be changed, the river will flow properly, and there will be enough crops in the fields but there won t be any ghers.

51 Factors enabling conflict reduction and change to cooperation 35 Outcomes of action research by main factor behind conflict Not resolved Partly Resolved Climate change NR access Policy Considers all cases in project

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53 Conclusions Local elites take advantage of opportunities from environmental/climate change and investments for their own benefit at the cost of poorer people. The enabling factors rarely work as a single element in transforming conflict into greater cooperation. Generally a combination of enabling factors and actions has resulted in change (or in their absence prevented change) in the research sites.

54 Most adaptation focuses on climate change impacts, with or without considering conflict

55 Conflict sensitivity Recognise inequalities in impacts (including responses to change) both of climate change and of adaptation measures Actor A Actor B Climate change impact or = Adapt option 1 Adapt option 2 - conflict Adapt option 3 - conflict e.g. TRM perceived as option 3 by gher owners (richer landowners as actor B)

56 Conflict sensitive adaptation recommendations Put much more emphasis on social understanding - recognise that communities and climate change affected populations are not homogeneous and adaptive capacities differ. While adaptation includes technical responses, it needs to be multi-disciplinary and understand hierarchies of past and present power relations. Recognise that some win-win responses can be developed, but other adaptations have winners and losers. Make sure that losers (often disadvantaged poor in conflicts and/or climate change) are not disadvantaged by adaptation interventions.

57 Issues to consider in planning conflict sensitive adaptation Who uses which natural resources? (remember marginalized groups, migrants and seasonal users) What existing institutions (rules, norms, informal, formal, policies, organisations and groups) govern access rights and exploitation levels? What are the existing positions and interests of relevant actors?, and what are their interactions? What changes in natural resource base and access arrangements are expected with and without the proposed adaptation intervention? Who has what roles in planning, short term implementation and long term operation of the adaptation? How much political commitments are there?

58 Future research and application Network of over 270 floodplain CBOs that we work with - continue to strive for more resilient and adaptive natural resource management. Critical assessment of impacts of adaptation investments on social dynamics. Longer term do changes reported sustain? Role of local factors and larger scale factors in conflicts. More documentation of conflicts and sharing of evidence. Collaboration between researchers, CBOs and government agencies

59 Thank you